Views From the Top

Four wealthy and outspoken philanthropists share their thoughts about giving

Sheila C. Johnson, a co-founder of Black Entertainment Television, in Washington, recently canceled a $1-million gift to a hospital in Loudon County, Va., because she determined the money would not be spent as she had intended. “I have been very disappointed in a lot of organizations because, No. 1, they could never account for where the money went and I never held them accountable,” said Ms. Johnson, who has since hired advisers to help oversee her donations.

Speaking this month as part of a panel of wealthy philanthropists at the New School University here, Ms. Johnson told the audience that now the charities she gives to “are checked on every year. They have to become accountable, and if they cannot do that, I have it written in the contract that I can pull the money.”

Ms. Johnson was joined by Lewis B. Cullman, president of Cullman Ventures, in New York; Tim Gill, founder of the publishing-software company Quark, in Denver; and Peter B. Lewis, chairman of Progressive Insurance, in Cleveland. During the hour-long conversation, the donors made clear their frustrations with mistakes charities made in selecting board members and in soliciting large gifts from them.

In addition to helping ensure that her donations are used wisely, Ms. Johnson said, her advisers rein in her desire to give to everybody who asks so that she can instead focus on her goals of helping children, the arts, and education. Ms. Johnson also said her advisers offer a layer of protection from “some crazy people” who have pursued her and her wealth. Ms. Johnson donated $8-million last year. Forbes magazine estimated her wealth to be $750-million in 2004.

Mr. Cullman, who published a book in 2004 on making and giving away money, said he preferred not to use advisers. “I feel if I am incapable of making a judgment I shouldn’t be doing it at all,” he said. “I make mistakes, but those are my mistakes, not my advisers’ mistakes.” Mr. Cullman and his wife, Dorothy, donated more than $10-million to charity last year, and also have given $51-million to the Museum of Modern Art, in New York, and $30-million to the New York Public Library.

Added Mr. Lewis: “No matter what mistakes I make giving money away, it doesn’t rival the mistakes I made making it.”

One type of mistake Mr. Lewis has made in the past has been giving organizations too much money. “Where I have overfunded I have effectively choked those organizations,” he said. “Where I don’t pay attention in advance to their governance and their control, or I listen to the daydreams of the zealot running the organization. It’s those kinds of things that, because I’m happy and positive and wanting to believe everybody, usually I give them some money. And I find out — after I gave them some money — that I gave them enough money already and it’s time to stop.”

Mr. Lewis, who donated $100-million to organizations last year, resigned in January as the chairman of the board of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, in New York, over disagreements about its direction with the rest of the board and the museum’s director, Thomas Krens. Mr. Lewis had given the museum $77-million since he joined the board in 1993. “I bought into a management story and dream, hook, line, and sinker,” he said. (The Guggenheim has declined to comment on Mr. Lewis’s departure.)

Mr. Gill, who is also the founder of the Gill Foundation, which donates money mostly to gay and lesbian and HIV/AIDS organizations, said he avoids the problems that come with awarding too much money to a single organization by not giving any gift that totals more than 10 percent of a charity’s budget. Larger gifts, he said, might give him “potentially too much power” over how a group operates. To illustrate his point, Mr. Gill described how a group where he was a large donor had once started a program because of an offhand comment he made at a cocktail party.

In addition to giving money to nonprofit groups, the donors said, they gave money to political causes, even though they do not receive tax breaks for those donations. “If you can make a difference in the government, it’s bigger than making a difference anyplace else,” said Mr. Lewis.

Mr. Gill said in the last five months he had made some small, local, political contributions, including a gift to help elect new school-board members in Colorado Springs.

“I’ve gone through the evolution of thinking politics is dirty, and evil, and corrupt, and saying I don’t want anything to do with it, to realizing that, in essence, politicians can take away money from things I care about,” he said. “If I do not stop the evil ones, they will stop progress.”

Fund-Raising Etiquette

All four of the philanthropists give away millions each year, and each talked about solicitation pitfalls to avoid. Ms. Johnson does not like people who call her office and pretend to be a friend or acquaintance to get a meeting. “People will lie to get to me,” she said. “That is the worst thing that anybody or any organization can do.”

When Mr. Cullman attends a meeting about a gift, he wants the charity official to talk about the request immediately. “If someone wants to ask me for money, I want them to ask me. I don’t want them to skirt around with a lot of generalities,” he said. “I want the punchline before I order the first course.” His desire for brevity extends to written solicitations. “If people come in with a big, fat letter, I’m gone right away,” he said.

Tim Gill doesn’t like fund-raising officials to attempt to use guilt to persuade him to make a gift, he said. When one such person told him “the world would end” without his support, Mr. Gill eventually asked not to be approached again. The organization dispatched another official to call him. Mr. Gill told the group not to contact him again, adding that, if they did, “I will fund your opposition.” They stopped.

Fund raisers at the panel discussion learned never to approach Mr. Lewis at one of his parties to solicit a gift.

At his annual brunch to celebrate the New York City Marathon, Mr. Lewis said he was trying to greet guests when a woman buttonholed him to talk about a donation. “I wanted to slap her in the face,” he said. In addition, Mr. Lewis never opens his mail, prefers to communicate via e-mail, and isn’t “wild” about multiple-year gifts because he doesn’t like to commit his support in advance. When he does decide on a gift, Mr. Lewis said he always thinks about what he will get from it, such as meeting new people and being honored for his largess.

“It’s crazy to give money away and not enjoy it,” he said. “There is a collection of things they do to make guys like me feel good, and it’s amazing how sloppy many organizations are about doing that. I expect it costs them a lot” in donations they miss out on.

When asked to cite another philanthropist he admired, Mr. Lewis named George Soros, the billionaire financier who founded the Open Society Institute for his charitable giving. “He stuck his neck out early and farther than anybody else,” said Mr. Lewis.

Mr. Gill said he tended not to have “heroes,” with the “possible exception of Dr. Spock,” the pointy-eared character from the Star Trek television show. Instead, he said a small donor impressed him in the opposite way. As the donor grew older, he became afraid to give away his money, and he urged Mr. Gill not to follow his example. “That is one of the major driving forces of my philanthropy,” said Mr. Gill. “To get my money out of my own hands before I get into some kind of mental state where I either can’t give it away or am afraid to give it away.”